RELEASED The Orcana

I suppose it's about time for a long awaited preview. I've been working on the designs for my tier 3 and 4 armors. Keep in mind that the animation frames still need to be done, so it'll be a little while till they're ready.

What do you think?



I'm not sure if @evendel is still around, but I'd like to give him a shout out for his initial designs that I used as starters to make these.

 

This looks FAR superior then the majority, if not all, tear 3 and 4 armors I've seen for the vanilla races. It also blends very well the Orcana design, I LOVE IT!

 

Holy crap that does look nice. I'm still out here, but I haven't gotten my little race project up and running again since they launched. Eventually I'll relearn modding and finish since now things are as stable as they'll get with a 1.- release of the game. I could be wrong, but I think when I get to it our armors will start to diverge around tier 4. My tier 3 is very similar to your 4 I think design-wise, and I was going to get higher tech by 4, 5, and 6 leaning a bit on my love for Warhammer 40k. But I'll still likely be using vanilla assets with some small tweaking. Now my only problem is that I want to play your Orcana again and for some reason my game won't recognize the mod. I'll have to fiddle with it and try again later. But thanks for the shout out, it was your mod that inspired me to start making my own. I just find it startling still that with as popular as the Anodyne idea was no one has actually made good on my idea of bringing them to life (in a way) side by side with the Novakids.

 

I think the armor to the left should have a different looking plume instead of the common roman looking one. Maybe looking more like a fin. I really like the tier 4 armor set(right side I assume) looks awesome.

 

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Yeah, the ideas I have for tiers 5 and 6 are not what I would think of when I think of 40k.

I plan on doing more of that fin type design with some of the tier 5 and 6 looks. They'll be more techie too. I just wish armor could use the fullbright system.

 

Cool, I am looking forward to it. If you've seen the speedier types of Armored Cores in Armored Core 4 +, I was drawing miniture versions of those for accelerator, but more of a fish look like your Orcana ship.

 

Well, It's been a while. From an outside perspective things have been quiet for a couple of months now, so I wanted to give a status report. I am currently working on polishing the giant coral biome by making and implementing custom art for the giant coral trees and probably an additional tube worm variant or two. I will also very likely adjust spawn rates for the small ambient plants to increase density. Things are working in Starbound 1.3 with all the new space update stuff, so there will be a working version available once 1.3 goes live. Orcana themed mech bodies will be coming as well, but I think my next big project for the Orcana will be villages. If any of you have any underwater Orcana builds using small village sized structures I would love to get some inspiration. And as always, constructive comments and suggestions are always welcome. Thanks, all!

 

I just realized that I completely forgot to post the update notice with change notes for the last update. My apologies. Hopefully my previous post didn't come as a confusing surprise for most of you. Anyway... Here 'tis:

B.5.0

• Armor tiers 3 and 4 complete
• Consolidated the Orcana strip light objects into one object (orcanalightstrip) that automatically change its configuration to form a visually contiguous strip when placed based on surrounding light strip segments, and only one of the pieces needs to be wired in order for the entire strip to be powered. A HUGE thanks to nickc01 for the Lua work on this.
• Added a few minor Orcana related colony quests
• Added Orcana Wall Switch (orcanawallswitch)
• Finally finished the art work for the coral roof tiles
• Added coral windows (coralwindow)
• Added coral fence (coralfence)
• Added coral gate (orcanacoralgate)
• Boltguns are now more visually appealing in low light situations
• New Biome! – Giant Coral - Subbiome on arctic planets
  • Added Giant Coral - can be cut down for coral fragments (currently using placeholder art)
  • Added nautiloid critter
  • Added reefray critter
  • Added Hydrothermal Vents (decorative, but smashable)
  • Added Tube Worms (smashable, and occasionally drop glow fibre)

** If you experience any performance issues in this new biome please let me know.

 

B.5.2 - (Starbound 1.3 Spacefarer update)

• Updated for 1.3
• Added art for giant coral trees (still WIP)
• Added Orcana wall button
• Reworked the Orcana wall switch (Old ones that are in use may or may not work now. Sorry for any inconvenience, but the new version of the switch is better. I promise. It even has an input now too.)
• Added Orcana mech bodies (currently using Hylotl placeholder art, but has different default colors)
• Added Orcana teal color to mech color palette

 

The tails are pretty cool, but sometimes I don't like seeing it stick out of my supposedly sealed space-suit. Is there an add-on mod or something that can turn the tails off?

 

Currently there is not. Sorry. I may throw one together eventually though.

 

B.5.4 - Mech Update

• Added final art for both Orcana mech bodies
• Added whale mech horn
• Most Orcana coral furniture should now be craftable in the appropriate crafting tables.

 

B.5.4a - Quick correction

• Tier 4 armor was available to be crafted a bit early in progression. This has been corrected.

That is all.

 

Thank you for making one of my favorite races in Starbound. Thank you for this great effort that adds so much life to this game 200 hours in, still not bored

 

Glad to hear it. Let me know if there's anything that you think the mod needs. Expect something big in the next update.

 

Awesome mod. Love the concept and culture, I see your still working on the Codex, which I assume means the lore. Are you taking suggestions?

 

I'm always open to suggestions. In fact, I wouldn't be against getting complete codex submissions.

 

The Orcana are a benevolent race of porpoises. Relatively late to the game when it comes to space travel in comparison to Humans and Hylotl, but overall have a highly intellectual nature. While known for being traditionally democratic, they were eventually unified into a single world under the Empire through both diplomatic means and conquest. Under the Empire the Orcana thrived and even managed limited space travel, managing to colonizing most of their solar system. And when flags rose to proclaim independence, the Empire merely saw this as an opportunity to show their military might and bring them back into the fold.

But despite the power of their military and despite their many advancements in technology, none of it could stop the inevitable, their planet was slowly orbiting into the sun, and sooner than anyone ever thought it would. They tried everything within their power, they tried to fabricate a wormhole to move it, but they did not have the technology. They tried to generate gravity to shift it, but they lacked the ability to produce enough power to make a strong enough gravity. They even sacrificed one of the moons of their planetary states to try to shift its orbit, but still to no avail. In the end, they tried to evacuate, and they saved many lives, but still millions died that infamous day. And the hardest part of all, was the people watching, up in the sky, their home planet and crown jewel of the Empire, sinking into the sun. You could hardly see it, all it looked like was a star moving behind the sun, but they knew, they all knew what it meant.

Without the capital of the Empire, it devolved into an archipelago of independent planets who waged constant war. And worse yet, they were knocked back into a technological dark age, no longer traveling planet to planet in ships but instead single use rockets. They remained this way up until their discovery by the other races and eventually their assimilation into the protectorate, bringing the archipelago into an uneasy alliance. This lead to an age of technological enlightenment, with an insuppressible wave of philosophy and art, finally all was well for the Orcana.

But now, with the recent destruction of Earth and the fall of the Protectorate, the Orcana have been sent into mayham. Old strife manifest again as the archipelago of nations return to war, and the people dread the prophesied return of the greatest threat to the Orcana, the return of the Dark ages. You were there, and as an Orcana adventurer it is up to you to restore your race to their former glory, to bring back the age of Democracy or the return of the Empire, and to light the candle to banish the darkness of ignorance and superstition.

This is a rough draft but I think it brings the general idea, I was thinking this was found in the ship at the start. Hope you like it, also have a few ideas for other lore books you can come across while exploring.

 

That's some really good conceptualization you got going there. However - and this is on me for the lack of available lore - it is different from how my vision for Orcana history and culture. They actually came into their own centuries ago, and became a peaceful race long before they encountered the Protectorate. The first part of this could explain their more militant past though - back before the enlightenment. I like it.

 

Where can you get the other Orcana blocks, other than the coral things? Or rather, how do you unlock the blueprint?